Includes bibliographical references (p. [277]-288) and index

Anna O.: the first tall tale / Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen -- Freud's master hysteric / Peter J. Swales -- Was Freud a liar? / Frank Cioffi -- Self-seduced / Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen -- The rhythm method / Frank J. Sulloway -- Made-to-order evidence / Adolf Grünbaum -- Manifestly fallacious / Rosemarie Sand -- Error's reign / Sebastiano Timpanaro -- Can intuitive proof suffice? / Barbara Von Eckardt -- Claims without commitments / Frank Cioffi -- Why can't a woman be more like a man? / Malcolm Macmillan -- Delusion and dream in Freud's 'Dora' / Allen Esterson -- A little child shall mislead them / Joseph Wolpe and Stanley Rachman -- Exemplary botches / Frank J. Sulloway -- The primal scene of persuasion / Stanley Fish -- Culture vulture / David E. Stannard -- Free fall / Ernest Gellner -- Paranoia methodized / John Farrell -- Sons and killers / François Roustang -- The marriage counselor / Lavinia Edmunds

Here are 20 rigorous essays that mount a formidable critique of mainstream Freudian theory and practice, and of Freud's major cases. Whereas Freud fostered the idea of solitary, heroic discovery through his self-analysis, in reality, the authors contend, he taught his followers to replace the empirical attitude with blind loyalty and censorship, instilling in them a negative, quasi-paranoid view of rival theorists and clinicians. The contributors--among them Frank J. Sulloway, Ernest Gellner, Peter J. Swales and other noted American and European scholars in fields ranging from philosophy to neuroscience--present compelling evidence that Freud habitually and greatly exaggerated his therapeutic successes. They also cast serious doubt on new Freudians' confidence in free association as a curative tool to decipher the meaning of dreams or to reconstruct events from a patient's distant past

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